Chinese manufacturing has come a long way – and by some measures, it is stronger than ever. Whereas foreign-invested enterprises were the driving force behind China’s manufacturing exports 20 years ago, most of these firms are now leaving China, having lost their market share to domestic competitors. And these dominant Chinese companies are not limited to the low-value-added production of the past. They are global leaders in many high-tech industries, such as semiconductors and electric vehicles, where they hold an absolute price advantage.

Washington is now piling up debt even in the absence of an emergency. In the long run, this sort of quick fix, where the cure is worse than the disease, will only worsen America’s economic fragility and add to uncertainty.

After a public split with Donald Trump over the “Big Beautiful Bill,” Elon Musk launched the America Party in an effort to challenge the U.S. two-party system. While his shifting stance on China adds strategic ambiguity, the party serves as a stress test for American democracy in an era of polarization and gridlock.

By equating artificial intelligence data flows with national security risks, the United States has effectively designated China as a presumptive problem. This has not only soured the atmosphere for bilateral AI cooperation but also promises to cast a long shadow over global AI collaboration.

China’s economy today bears an unsettling resemblance to Japan’s in the 1990s, when the collapse of a housing bubble led to prolonged stagnation. But Japan’s “lost decades” were not the inevitable result of irreversible trends; they reflected policy blunders, rooted in a flawed understanding of the challenges the economy faced. Will Chinese policymakers make the same mistakes?

European Union leaders’ proclamations of supply autonomy sound great under the spotlight, but don’t hold up under the microscope. The truth may be that China already has won the game with its vice-grip on rare metal exports.

The honeymoon between Elon Musk and U.S. President Donald Trump ended with a war of words on social media. In his six months in the White House, Musk came to see big differences between his own political philosophy and that of die-hard Trump fans.

Global trade is evolving, not ending, as structural limits on U.S. protectionism and the rise of regional agreements beyond U.S. influence sustain economic integration. While the U.S. remains the dominant power, the U.S.-centric trade regime is gradually declining.

The genius of China’s approach is that it never triggers a full-scale crisis. It ensures that American companies and politicians exist in a state of perpetual anxiety. Inventories shrink to manage costs and procurement becomes a game of roulette. Meanwhile, Beijing can modulate the pressure.

Court rulings could weaken the U.S. administration’s tough stance in trade talks and give trading partners more room to maneuver. But policy uncertainty means that high-stakes trade negotiations could go either way.